The Marine
by At A Venture
Summary: Eric n' Sooks - Summer of '69 One-shot Contest. AH, AU. Set in 1969, Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress in a small town all-night diner, meets an attractive Vietnam vet.


**Eric n' Sooks - Summer of '69 One-shot Contest**

**Title: **The Marine

**Your Pen name: **AtaVenture

**Characters: **Eric, Sookie, Sam, Arlene, and references to Jason, Gran, and Amelia

**Disclaimer: **Characters aren't mine. Blah blah blah.

**Beta: **FDM

**Notes:** AU, AH. Try compressing Brad Colbert and Eric Northman into one amazingly sexy piece of man, and you'll have the hot chunk of yum in this story. Yay. ~AAV

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_The Marine_

The bell over the door chimed as it opened. I looked up from the countertop I'd been languidly wiping to catch a glance of the customer. It was just past two in the morning, but Sam's Diner was open all night, drawing in the crowds of loggers and truck drivers that passed from Jasper to Lufkin on the state highway. I usually took the graveyard shift, just because the customers were a little more interesting, a little more unusual. Anyway, I'm not a morning person. I'd much rather be up all night, watch the sunrise, all that. On that particular Sunday, we'd had four truckers, two loggers from out of town, and Jane Bodehouse, the old drunk that had lost her husband during Korea. She'd never been the same since.

Sam leaned out of the kitchen to gaze at our newest guest too. His pale strawberry blond locks stuck to his sweaty forehead in wet curls. His thin lips turned up when he saw me, and I smiled back, more friendly than with any kind of seductive effort. Sam Merlotte was a sweet ol' country boy from what folks affectionately called the Golden Triangle. He'd grown up in some little Cajun-influenced Texan town where everybody knew everybody but no one really got along too well.

"Get him a table, _chere._" Sam inclined his head in the man's direction, then disappeared behind the kitchen window again. I heard the whoosh of steam as he fired up the grill.

I admired him as I shuffled my feet toward the front door. He was definitely a looker, more attractive than any man I'd seen in a long time. He looked like the sort that should live in Houston, or, heck, even New Orleans. He shouldn't be passing through Backwater, Texas, no matter where he might have been headed. He had military-crew-cut blond hair and the most vibrant, blazing blue eyes I had ever seen. They seemed to stare right into my soul, and yet, they weren't seeing anything at all. He looked vacant, shell-shocked maybe. That was pretty common, no matter where you went. Men looked like they saw ghosts and demons in their dreams, even when they were awake.

Jason drifted briefly into my head, but I shook the thought away. There was no use thinking about that now. I'd think about it later.

"Howdy!" I beamed at him. "Welcome to Sam's Diner. I'm Sookie. Do you want a booth or a seat at the counter?"

"A booth," he replied, turning to me slowly and answering as though he were weighing both options carefully before making the decision.

"Absolutely, darlin'!" I overcompensated for his quiet voice and withdrawn demeanor by laying on the Texan accent. I wasn't actually Texan. I'd moved to East Texas from northern Louisiana, looking for decent work. East Texas was the farthest you could get away from civilization, war, and rioting, and I needed that kind of escape. "Just follow me right on over here and have yourself a seat."

He moved slowly, but with a kind of confident swagger. I'm no mind reader, but I could tell he was a highly stationed type of man, back when he was in the military. He might have been a captain or a lieutenant or something equally high-ranking. The whole thing put a strength in his gait that made people take notice. I dragged my eyes away with effort-quite a lot of effort. He sat down between the table and the shiny vinyl booth.

"Can I get you something to drink?" I smiled, feeling almost awkwardly cheerful. "Sam just made a pitcher of sweet tea, if you're interested."

"A cup of coffee will be fine. Black." He didn't look at me when he spoke. He didn't really look at anything. He stared at the table but I was pretty sure he wasn't actually reading the front page of the menu. It had a picture of Sam's dog on it, a collie named Dean, and a picture of our diner with the fluorescent lights beaming between two ancient loblolly pine trees. He turned the page while I stood there, telling him I'd have his coffee right out. The breakfast menu gleamed, but one of the pages had spots of coffee and flecks of ketchup on it. I wanted to yank it out of his hands, find another clean one. Usually that sort of stuff didn't really matter to me. Maybe it was his obvious position in life, or maybe that I could imagine myself kissing him up against the door of my rickety Volkswagon, but I wanted him to have something nice.

I walked back behind the counter and grabbed the coffee pot off the burner. Arlene walked around to meet me, her hands steadying a tray of hamburger baskets for a couple truckers in the smoking section of the diner. She tossed her red head to one side, indicating the man at the booth.

"Who's that?" She hissed at me in a flirtatious way.

"He just came in. I think he's military." I tried to shrug, to show Arlene I wasn't interested at all. It was a hard secret to keep.

"By the hair, I'm going with yes." Arlene nodded. "Too bad he ain't in uniform, right? I love a man in uniform."

"You love a man," I smirked at her, putting the coffee down.

"No need to be snippy, Sookie Stackhouse. If you live in East Texas, you gotta have low standards to meet anybody decent."

"What can I get ya?" I asked him, perching on one knee beside the table after I'd dropped off his coffee. I still had a smile plastered on my face, and I couldn't seem to make it disappear. Was I nervous? Was that what it was? I was kneeling a foot and a half away from a beautiful specimen of manliness, but surely that wasn't making me uncomfortable. There was just something about him, something untouchable and fascinating. I couldn't stop staring at him, and I couldn't stop grinning like an idiot. Nice job, Sookie. Way to rake in the men.

"Do you have pie?" The man looked down at me then. He actually acknowledged my presence. Suddenly, I wanted to hunt down every single pie in a hundred miles and serve it to him on silver plates. We did have pie. Arlene had made it herself, and that meant it wouldn't be very good. But it was the only pie we sold. Sam was really more of a grilling man than a baker, and I couldn't make food. I only knew how to serve it.

"Yeah, we have apple and cherry."

"Can I have a slice of each? And ice cream." He smiled then, maybe not at me so much as the ice cream, but it was still nice. I wrote his order on my pad, though it wasn't really necessary, and went to get some of Arlene's pie. I sliced two far-too-big portions, and added ice cream scoops to both plates. When I brought them back, I slid into the seat opposite him and put the plates down. It was a bold move, to be sure, but this was the late shift. Sometimes at two in the morning, people were a little more open about their lives.

"So, you gotta name?" I smiled at him, letting curiosity take over my manners. My grandmother, Adele, would have reprimanded me pretty hard for being so abrupt, but Gran had passed away shortly before Jason was drafted. It was better anyway. She didn't have to see our world crumble down around our ears.

"Eric," he admitted with some reluctance. Then, after a second, he seemed to regain a shred of confidence. "First Sergeant Eric Northman, United States Marine Corps."

"See, I knew it! I figured you'd have to have some kind of rank or something. Sometimes you can just tell, you know?"

"No, I can't say that I do." He closed up again, like a clam. It was sort of disappointing. I'd hoped that after I'd asked him about his rank, he'd tell me about Vietnam. Obviously, he'd been there. Just about everyone had. My brother, Jason, was one of the first drafted men. In eight months, I'd gotten one letter from him, telling me that he was leaving boot camp for SE Asia, and that he was scared he'd never get to see Louisiana again. I shuddered a little.

"Do you always work the night shift?" Eric spoke so suddenly that it shook me right out of my nostalgia. I could have fallen right over if I hadn't been sitting down.

"Yeah. I like it. I mean, the people you meet at night in a diner on an old trucking route…well, they tend to be pretty unique. I love a good story. It helps make life interesting."

"Is your story interesting?" He smiled at me, for the first time. It was a good smile, a little cocky and a little dark. His mouth curved up on one side, almost smirking. His eyes glittered like stars. To see his face, you might never have known that he was a brooding officer from a station in Vietnam. You'd just think he was a cocky son of a bitch from Anywhere, Texas.

"I don't know. Maybe it is. I guess it depends on your perspective." I shrugged a little. Best to keep them hanging. Arlene had taught me that, and it was one of the few times that her advice about men had been spot on.

"I'd like to hear it sometime," Eric smiled. He placed a piece of pie on his tongue, almost daintily. He wasn't gobbling his food up like truckers and loggers often did, like someone was about to steal his plate from under his nose.

"Guess you'll have to come back, then," I grinned.

"Yes, I think that may be necessary," he agreed.

"Sookie! Come on, can I get a hand here or what?" Sam yelled through the kitchen window, and I practically fell out of my seat. I'd been so lost in thought that I'd forgotten I was at work, let alone _working_. I frowned apologetically at the marine and squirmed out of the booth. I left his check on the table, a little note in pen beside the amount due. _You should definitely come back. We'll have more pie!_

He left in the span of time I spent wiping dishes in the kitchen with Sam. I came back out to clear his dishes, and found a pile of dollar bills for the pie, and a second pile of bills as a tip. The pie was really inexpensive, and all of the proceeds went into Arlene's pocket, but the tip was all mine and it was nearly as much as the pie itself! I pocketed the cash and smiled a little. Just as I'd told him, it was always a trip working the night shift. You met the most interesting people, and sometimes, they'd even follow you home. I left work at five in the morning, unable to get the handsome marine out of my head. His deep blue eyes and smirking smile were mesmerizing, and I'd see them flash in my head at the most unusual moments. Sam kept yelling at me to keep me on task. Business slowed down around four in the morning, so I sat at the counter top, filling ketchup bottles and fantasizing.

Perhaps he'd meet me outside the diner. He'd be leaning against my car door, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He'd be shipping out soon, back to the horrific and humid jungles of Vietnam, but before he left…

"Give me something to look forward to, Sookie," he growled at me in a soft but deep voice, a voice that radiated through my skin and tickled my insides. "Give me something to remember when I'm hot and wet in the midst of a war zone."

"I think I'm the hot, wet one," I whispered back to him, giggling just a bit. He'd laugh then, a sudden burst of sound that would rise up from his throat and fill the night with life. He'd drop the duffel bag and yank me into his arms, his hands sliding down my hips, pushing up the short black skirt I'd worn to work that night. His mouth would find mine in the dark, tug hungrily on my lips. Our tongues would intertwine.

"Sookie! You're spilling salt all over the damn table!" Sam yelled at me through the kitchen window. I blinked and looked down. He was right. Salt had gone every which way. Hadn't I been working on ketchup? I could feel myself blushing, my cheeks growing hot and red. I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd gotten the vinyl bar seat damp with all my fantasizing. That only made me blush more.

"Ooh, sorry Sam," I frowned. I pushed the salt into a lump, threw a little over my shoulder for luck, and scooped the rest into the trash behind the counter.

"Why don't you go on home? I'll see you tonight."

"Sure, Sam," I nodded, happy to squirm out of there before the fantasies pushed themselves back into my brain. I barely made it out to the parking lot before they rolled back into my head, playing on my emotions.

He came back in the next night, and this time I was ready for him. I'd stood over Arlene while she made pie after pie, six different ones! We'd picked the last of the cherries from her garden and made a cherry pie, taken half of the blackberries from my yard and made blackberry pie, and "borrowed" oatmeal from Sam's kitchen to make Amish Oatmeal Pie. On top of that, we made a coconut cream, a chocolate cream, and a strawberry pie. I figured we'd have all our bases covered that way. I waited patiently for him at the counter, trying to keep my shaking hands busy. He walked in around the same time, just as the clock ticked over to two.

He sauntered in with more grace, but still with the gait of an officer. He seemed happier, or maybe more confident, I couldn't be sure. Something about him was just different, and more attractive. He'd pulled a black leather jacket with a sheep skin collar over an old, beat up white shirt, and his denim jeans seemed to conform around his muscular legs in a way I'd never really seen before. Our loggers and truckers usually came in from the job. They were dirty and sweaty and had holes in their loose denim work pants. They all wore muddy work boots and had unbuttoned their plaid shirts so I could see swirls of dark chest hair and the tops of a variety of tattoos. Eric was a different sort of man, clean and crisp. His clothes were battered with wear, but he'd obviously tried to make the best of an imperfect situation, choosing the most beautiful clothes. He looked like a model or a businessman, not like a veteran.

"Hey, welcome back!" I beamed at him, sitting across from him in the same booth he'd chosen the night before. I'd dressed to the nines myself, hoping he'd be back. The uniform at Sam's was fairly standard, white shirts and black bottoms. I'd worn a short black skirt and a thin white top, just enough of a change to show him I was interested but not a harlot.

"Good evening," he grinned, that same smirking grin he'd revealed last night. He was in higher spirits, and that was fairly evident. He looked happy, really happy. Some of the vacancy in his eyes seemed to have faded away.

"So what'll it be tonight?"

"Surprise me," he winked. Boy, if only I could have read his mind right then. He would have been impressed! Instead, I brought him a slice of everything we had. Yep, all six pies. It took me two trips to get them all out to him. He laughed, a great booming sound that had been exactly the same as the sound in my fantasy. It was almost uncanny. I laughed too, and our voices carried so far into the diner that Sam poked his head out of the kitchen to stare at me.

"So, tell me your life story," Eric smiled thoughtfully before taking a bite of cherry pie.

"I don't really have one yet." I shrugged because it was mostly true. A lot of things had happened to me, but I doubted my life was nearly as interesting as his seemed to be. After all, he'd been in the war. The only great thing I ever did was graduate from high school. He raised an eyebrow at me, a thin blond eyebrow that curved up in the dang sexiest way I'd ever seen. I could have turned into a puddle.

"Well, okay, but it isn't interesting." I frowned. "I was born in Northern Louisiana. My parents died in a flood when I was about seven, so my grandmother raised me and my brother, Jason. Gran died a few years ago, and Jason got drafted this past year. He got shipped out to Vietnam somewhere with the Army. So, I moved away from Louisiana and came out here. There was just so much going on there, lots of riots and integration and everything. Out here, we aren't integrated yet. I know it sounds really silly and we're really behind, but the lack of violence and hatred is nice. Everyone kinda stays off by themselves anyway."

"Have you heard from your brother?" His voice seemed quieter, and I instantly wondered if maybe I'd reminded him about the war too much. I mean, it was all over the news but we didn't really talk about it at the diner. Sam figured that no one really wanted to talk about it. Lots of people had sons in the war, or brothers, or dads. Everybody missed them, but in East Texas, nobody really talked about such things. People just pretended it wasn't happening, that the world wasn't coming down around our ears.

"No, not since he left boot camp or training or whatever it was," I shrugged.

"Sorry to hear that. It's easy to get distracted over there," Eric spoke so quietly so suddenly that he didn't even sound like the same man. He pushed away the cherry pie and took a bite from the blackberry one. I thought about telling him that they were my blackberries, growing wild in massive spiked bushes behind my house. I thought about telling him about all the thorns I'd pulled out of my clothes last night, just to grab the berries that the birds hadn't eaten. All the wind had been knocked out of me, just thinking about my stupid brother.

So, I was more than shocked when his hand, a big strong hand covered in calluses, reached across the table and touched my fingers. I blinked and looked down at it. Was he touching me? Was he reaching out to me? I'd mentioned the war and he seemed to have closed up inside a shell, like so many veterans did. Nobody who'd ever gone over there had ever talked to me about it. My father had been in World War Two and he never said anything about it at all. He had some kind of shrapnel in his leg and whenever the cold wind blew through in the winter time, he'd stiffen up and my mother would have to put a hot rag on his knee. All I knew about war, I knew from my father and brother fighting in them. I looked up and gazed at his face, only to notice his blue eyes as vacant as they'd been the night before.

"I enlisted in 1963," he murmured. His hand didn't leave mine, but I don't think his eyes ever really saw me. The connection was a strange one, disconnected and strained. "I was working on my father's farm, in Nebraska, but we lost half of our crop and he had to sell the land. I didn't have anything going for me, so I joined the Marines. They sent me overseas almost immediately. The war was just starting then. The French had pulled out, but LBJ pushed us in. I was older than a lot of the men, and I took a few courses at the community college. They thought I was a natural leader, so they gave me one of the higher posts in the ranks."

He paused for a minute, and pushed away the pie he'd been picking at. I stared at the table, waiting for him to continue. Why was he telling me this? Why were we talking about the war? I'd been so stupid, bringing up my brother, making everything so uncomfortable. I wanted to reach across the table and kiss him, tell him he didn't need to tell me anymore. It was okay to keep secrets if they were painful ones. I'd fed him some pie once. Did that mean I could sit next to him, stroke his hair, pull him into my arms? Could I comfort him and tell him he was home now?

"I lost a lot of men, some to diseases and some to bombs. Some of them got shot and were sent home. A few of them got bad cases of the Clap. War's an ugly thing." He paused and looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. "I shouldn't be so frank. You're just…it's easy talking to you."

"It's okay. I'm from Louisiana. You should hear our country boys talk." I tried to smile.

"I've only been back for a month. My men…we were following orders from our C.O. We went out into the jungle, looking for a few snakes hidden in the grass. We didn't see the mines until it was too late. They were blown to bits, my whole team, half of our unit. I managed to pull a couple men out, but they died in my arms. I can still feel their blood on my clothes."

His fingers shivered over mine. I replaced my hand over his and I knew why First Sergeant Northman had been sent home after six years in Vietnam. He'd seen too much, too much death and too much pain that he couldn't prevent. He'd lost so many men that he probably had those screaming nightmares my dad used to have when I was a kid. I'd hear Mama cooing to him, trying to get him to go back to sleep. Sometimes he'd stay up all night, fixing an old car in the garage. Sometimes I'd get up for school and he'd be staring into a bowl of soggy cereal. No wonder Sergeant Northman, Eric, came in at two in the morning. He couldn't sleep.

"I'm sorry," I frowned. What else could I say to comfort him? I barely knew the man. I knew his name, his rank, his choice of pie. That was all I could say for sure. I looked out the window and identified his car, a black Chevy Camaro. There, I could add that to the list. He had good taste and a decent amount of money. But that was where he dropped off. Everything else I knew about him was the man I'd created in my fantasies.

And what fantasies they were. He wouldn't have to come to the diner, all hostile with cold fluorescent lights and Sam's scowling mouth peering at us through the kitchen window. He'd wake up from a nightmare and I'd be right there beside him. I'd stroke his brow, beading with sweat, and kiss his golden crown. _Just relax. It's only a nightmare_. I'd draw his hand to my breast, try to urge him to other things, more pleasant memories. He'd squeeze my flesh, crawl over me and push me into the bed. The violence in his nightmares would seep out of his pores as he clawed at me, kissed me, shoved my nightgown up over my hips. I'd touch his stubbly face, stroke his cheeks with my thumbs, gaze up into those blue eyes that shone like flames. He'd have a halo of moonlight framing his figure, a few scars on his shoulders and chest, a tattoo on his forearm-the insignia of the Marines. _Take a deep breath, lover. I'm here. It's okay. _He'd pound me into the mattress, not because he wanted to hurt me but because he could remember all the men that had been hurt. Tears would glisten in his eyes but not fall. When he was finished, he'd bury his cheek in my nightgown and hold me, as though I might escape his grasp. Maybe he'd wake up in an instant and find himself back at a tent camp under fire. Maybe I'd just been a dream.

"Don't be sorry." He spoke gruffly, so randomly that I fell out of my fantasy as if I'd been ripped away from it. "It's already happened. There's nothing we can do about it now." He lifted his eyes to the clock over my head, just beyond my ear. I turned to look at it too. It was nearly four and I wasn't sure how it had gotten so late. Eric slid out of the booth and got to his feet. He held out a hand to me and I took it. I admired the warmth of his skin, imagined him pressed tightly against me, locked in a kiss.

"We'll have pie again tomorrow night," I murmured quietly as he paid his bill.

"I find that something sweet keeps the nightmares at bay," Eric chuckled, more to himself than to me. I imagined a few sweet things I could give him, and a flirtatious smile played on my lips.

"Sergeant," I whispered, almost under my breath. He looked at me, dropped his wallet in the back pocket of his jeans. "We'll have ice cream tomorrow."

"I can't wait." He winked then, and let that smirk slide over his closed mouth. I could have blushed.

I was waiting on tenterhooks for him the next night, my eyes glued to the front door. I'd spent most of the night tossing and turning, dreaming of him, lying awake thinking of him, unable to accomplish any kind of restful sleep. After five hours of trying to lull myself to sleep with different teas, I tried another method. I turned on the shower and lit a few candles in the bathroom. My roommate, a quirky hippie girl named Amelia, usually left a variety of non-essential bathroom goodies all over the sink. There were candles and sticks of incense and trinkets and bath salts of all types and scents. I turned out the bald light bulb hanging over the mirror and lit four candles. I put a stick of incense in one of the flames and let it burn red before blowing the flame out. It made a pretty spiral of smoke that reflected in the mirror.

In the flickering smoky darkness of the bathroom, the hot water running over my bare skin, I imagined him. First Sergeant Eric Northman would wrap his arms around my waist, press his bare hardness against my buttocks, growl gently near my earlobe. I'd breathe in the scent of his skin, a mix of sweat and war and incense and a little bit of sugar all transformed into one heady smell that made my eyes roll back in my head. He'd be rough and yet, strangely gentle, as though handling a mine about to explode in the fields of rice around Saigon. His tender kisses would never match the roughness of his hands on my hips, but the two sensations went perfectly together. I'd groan when he shoved me up against the loose wall tiles. He'd groan with pleasure as he sank into me, up to the hilt.

I came to work that night as though I'd slept for a thousand peaceful years. He looked just as tired and robbed of rest as always, the dark circles under his eyes growing more purple and black with each day. I'd already set a piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream at his table. He sat down slowly in front of it, as though his joints were aching. He turned to me, caught my eyes at the counter where I was wiping up a spill. I dropped the cloth, right there where I was standing, and walked over to him. I was compelled; there's no other explanation for it. I couldn't not walk over to him. His eyes burned into my skin, stared right down into my heart, and for a second I wondered if he knew about my night in the shower, my fantasies, my dreams. He was a man of the world. Maybe he knew exactly what I was thinking. Maybe he could even read my thoughts! I stood in front of his table, and my voice left me, running for the hills.

"Won't you join me tonight, Sookie?" His voice was gravely but warm, as warm as the voice of a soldier could be. He had three day old stubble on his chin, but his clothes were neat and unwrinkled. He unfolded a hand and held it out to me. Those hands were massive; enormous paws that could easily wrap around my neck and strangle me or cup my ass and push me up against the linoleum countertop. I shivered, just a little, before I sat down.

"A little cool in here tonight," I joked, as if I could pass off my trembling.

"I've always burned a little hot," Eric murmured thoughtfully. He was staring at me, perhaps judging the details of my skin and hair. I was under a spotlight, a cool blue spot that shone bright and hot and scary. It was more than erotic.

"Lucky," I breathed. Eric leaned forward, maybe trying to hear the hushed sound that was my voice. He stretched out his massive had to me again, and instinctively, I took it. I stretched across the table toward him, as conspiratorial and secretive as he appeared.

"Do you feel it," he asked. "That connection between us?"

I felt it. It seemed silly, but Amelia would have said exactly the same thing. She'd throw a deck of peculiar cards at me across the kitchen table and ramble on about my potential destiny or some crazy thing. Amelia had done a fair amount of drugs. This week, she was out of town at that big music festival in New York, but if she'd been home, she would have asked for tons of details about Eric Northman. From his shoe size and his hair color, she'd claim that he was the man for me, the best possible way to get me out of this place. I looked at him across the table, his deep blue eyes and his short white blond hair. I could follow him to the ends of the Earth…

"Join me tonight, Sookie," Eric hissed. He seemed to come to life in that tiny space between us. His bright blue eyes lit up as though his soul were shining candles behind them. I could almost see the man he'd been before the war had changed him. He'd had strands of that pretty blond hair falling over his face, like some hippie flower child. His stubble was thicker but not flecked with gray. Those blue eyes burned in his skull and mesmerized the women he'd loved. He'd growled into their ears, twirled strands of their hair around his long fingers, lavished their skin with long, slow kisses.

I agreed to meet him in front of the diner at four in the morning, just as I was finishing my shift. I would find him leaning against his car door, his crisp blue jeans rubbing against that shiny black Camaro. I spent the night lost in my thoughts, completely unable to focus on anything. I wiped the same spot on the counter for so long that Arlene snapped at me about leaving a dent in the linoleum.

He'd call me _My Lover_ before scooping me up into his strong arms. We'd go out to the woods behind the diner, up against an old loblolly pine. He'd hold my hands above my head, crossed at the wrist, and I'd let my hair roll back into the crispy brown bark. Our hips would grind together as one, a slow, rolling fuck that would send violent spasms through my muscles. With each hard thrust, he'd grunt against my ear. He'd bite my neck; leave bruises on my skin. The moon would dip out from beneath the layers of summer clouds and shine on his soft blond hair, making a halo around his head.

I gazed at him, sitting in his car, staring vacantly into the night. Would my fantasy match the man in that car? Would I ruin the dream by facing the reality? I'd been quivering with desire for him all night, but now, I trembled with fear. How could I ruin the best sex I'd ever had by actually going through with it? Amelia, if she'd been home, might have given me something to sweeten the deal. But without her, I was on my own with only my fantasies to protect me. And hurt me.

"Hey, _chere_, you mind if I walk you out?" Sam called to me over his shoulder. He'd brushed the sweat out of his hair, and the short strawberry blond curls framed his face. He'd been growing out a goatee for almost a week, and it had finally reached the stubble phase. His warm blue eyes weren't the same eyes I saw in Eric Northman, the eyes that chilled my heart and enlivened my desire, but they were welcoming all the same.

"Just a sec, Sam," I murmured, reaching for my bag. I passed a tin of half-eaten cherry pie as I walked out the back door. I deposited my apron in the laundry bag by the bathroom and shut off the lights. The diner went dark. A sliver of moonlight shone over his table. He was rustling in the car, and I heard a door slam shut somewhere.

"Sook?" Sam motioned to me in the darkness and I stepped closer to him. "You okay? You seem distracted."

I looked over my shoulder from the back of the restaurant. His shadowed moved in the darkness. The pale luster of his skin was radiant in the cool moonlight, and I could clearly see him standing there, waiting for me. I took Sam's elbow and had him lead me out back, away from the soldier that could turn my fantasies into reality, away from the man that could strike out my dreams. These were hard, crazy times, and frankly, I didn't need more disappointment.

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The End.


End file.
